


Atrocities We Inflict Upon Ourselves

by That_One_Parent_Like_Friend



Series: RvB, a Character Study [3]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: AI Program Beta's origin, Character Study, pre-series start, pre-torture of Alpha AI
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 07:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16949610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_One_Parent_Like_Friend/pseuds/That_One_Parent_Like_Friend
Summary: "A fragment? That shouldn't be possible.""Yes, sir. It seems the Alpha was under intense stress last night and this new program emerged at around 0100 hours. Like myself, this AI seems to have female traits, and Alpha is very fond of her."Her? That couldn't be. . . "Allison?"The Director wakes up one day on the MoI and discovers a new AI with Alpha. He tries to figure out what to do with it.





	Atrocities We Inflict Upon Ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> "While the law has many penalties for the atrocities we inflict on others, there are no punishments for the terrors that we inflict upon ourselves."  
> \- Dr. Leonard Church, former Director of Project Freelancer

    Checking in on the Alpha AI that morning had come with interesting results. In the middle of the night, a new AI seemed to have joined Alpha in his storage unit, and he knew it couldn't have been F.I.L.S.S. since he programmed her to be unable to access Alpha's unit. "Counselor, what do you think?"

    "Perhaps we should just observe them for a few days, see how he does interacting with another AI."

    "He? Since when did you start referring to Alpha by a gendered pronoun, Counselor?"

    "Alpha insisted on it when I last spoke with him."

    Ignoring that development, the Director had F.I.L.S.S. begin running a diagnostic scan of the new AI as he sat and watched as the two sets of code interacted. Like Alpha, this second AI projected itself in power armor similar to what his agents wore, which also gave it the same layer of anonymity that it gave Alpha. If the AI projected himself properly, it just might be his undoing, so he'd made sure the armor coding couldn't be changed. Of course, if his agents ever noticed Alpha's personality, it may as well have been for nothing. So he kept the AI logged off while the Freelancers were present, drawing as little suspicion as possible.

    The way Alpha interacted with the strange AI, however, looked as if they were familiar with each other. For now, he would call it Beta until he had all the information that manually going through it's code would take too long to be remotely productive. Eventually, F.I.L.S.S. gave him what he'd asked for.

    "A fragment? That shouldn't be possible."

    _"Yes, sir. It seems the Alpha was under intense stress last night and this new program emerged at around 0100 hours. Like myself, this AI seems to have female traits, and Alpha is very fond of her."_

    Her? That couldn't be. . . "Allison?"

    Unlike what would normally happen if he spoke that name, Alpha seemed stable, as did 'Beta'. He'd still keep them together for a few days, making sure there were no other irregularities, and then he'd decide on what to do with her. Beta's presence appeared to be what was keeping Alpha stable, as the AI would normally produce strings of incoherent code whenever Allison was mentioned, as if the memories he had leftover from being created from his own mind were painful to think of. But Beta was there now. Beta was his memories of Allison to keep him company while he was alone in his containment unit.

    So many ideas ran through his head over the next several days as he simply observed the pair. This was a groundbreaking discovery for the field of AI theory. A full smart AI being under so much stress it split part of itself to create a new, quite possibly weaker, AI fragment. While he could never publish a paper over this because of the very nature of Alpha's existence, he could still study the effects fragmentation had on both the full AI and its resultant fragments. If he could just get Beta out of there, give her to someone with a weak enough will that she could take over after implantation . . . .

    There was, of course, the issue where she could possibly still remember this time she was spending with Alpha. He couldn't have that, so he pulled her early. He'd go in and alter their memories enough that they wouldn't question the absence of each other, though there was always the chance he could miss something. Alpha could always still retain his fixation on Allison and the Beta AI. Though he'd have to think of something else to call her. Carolina would get suspicious.

    Going over the list of still unused agent designations while changing almost endless strings of code, he remembered he'd put a reservation on Texas, where Allison was from. It would be perfect. He'd been saving it for the moment he ever found someone good enough to be able to take on the name.

    Once a proper candidate had been found and implantation was finally complete, he went to see her with the Counselor so he could give her a psych eval. It went well enough, and hearing Beta's voice take over her host's was strange. No, not Beta. Not anymore. She was Texas. They tested to see just how much control she had over the body and it was perfect. Seamless nerve hacking, and the host seemed unaware. At the moment, there didn't seem to be any memory bleed-through, either.

    "Welcome aboard, Agent Texas."

**Author's Note:**

> While in the middle of writing this, I was thinking about all of the six one-shots I've planned out, and how the Director's, Wash's, and Church's all are going to deal with memories. The other three are also going to have a similar theme to each other. And I realize the title doesn't match the same part of the quote, that was intentional. It sounded weird to me the other way


End file.
